Speakeasy
by xoxoLee
Summary: AU. In Chicago's Roaring 20s, Paul London, a journalist, sets out to unravel the mystery of who killed his friend in an infamous speakeasy and why. As far as he's concerned, everyone is a suspect.
1. Chapter 1

August 5th. The night was dark and the streets were damp from the neighborhood kids running rampant in games of water war, the result of keeping cool in the heat wave. The streets were abandoned, except for me. Mothers had gathered their children in the house, and some of the more upscale citizens were busy entertaining guests in their homes. Maybe there were a few pictures showing in the theater, but the only place getting a good amount of cash was the speakeasy downtown.

I was leaning against the flickering streetlight as I watched an ambulance roar by me, running over a puddle and splashing my pants with muddy water. Another man that went crazy from the heat, I supposed. Looking down at the spot, I muttered curses that my mother would grab my ear for even in my adult age. I felt it was justified. After all, I was still wearing my good clothes from my meeting with the Chicago Tribune, the most prestigious newspaper in the state of Illinois.

Kicking at air in my anger, I went along my way, heading back down the lonely path to my small apartment. Walking up the front steps to the building I heard a raspy woman's voice calling down to me. "Hey kid, how'd that fancy meetin' of yours go?" It was Amy, an older woman though not by much, that stopped by from time to time to "visit". When we first met, I was in a rush to get a good scoop and ran right into her. She told me that she was visiting her cousin, but I had seen a number of women visiting him as well. The man had a lot of family.

Of course the hens of the neighborhood had a great deal to say about it. Old Mrs. Bennett in her snooping saw me talking to her and promptly shared her thoughts with me. I don't listen to much of what she says but I did hear the words "floozy" and "working girl" in the non-sense she was spouting. By the way that Amy looked I had a feeling that she had relatives all over the place, if you know what I'm getting at. None of the girls I knew painted their faces and dripped with ice like her. To be honest, I could find how many found it appealing, but this woman wasn't like the girls I grew up with. Risqué to the girls I knew was them borrowing their mother's pale pink lipstick for a date. Amy was the poster girl for flappers, defining the word "danger".

"Good, I think. They read some of my articles, and they told me to come back with a big story and if it's good they'll publish it. Better than telling me to scram, you know?" In the faint lamp light coming from the room, I could see her crimson lips curl up into a smile. The thud of a body colliding with a table sounded in the background. She turned her head of wavy red hair back at the scene behind her. "That's good, great actually. One of us needs to get out of this place, but I think you deserve it more." Another thud came from the room and again she turned to look, this time looking bother when she came back to focus. "Go. If you end up visiting a while longer, stop by before you leave. If it isn't a bother, I mean." Amy smiled sweetly. It was like an angel's smile, and I swear I heard a harp as the heavens opened above. Soon after the window shut and went back on my way to my apartment.

My routine was simple when I came home. I slipped off my shoes, hung up my coat and threw a kettle on the stove for a cup of tea. It eases the soul. Flinging my tie across the room and onto the radio, my tea kettle whistled to signal that it was finished. Just as it whistled, I heard a hard knock on my door like someone was beating on it with a hammer. Definitely not Amy. Cautiously I opened the door a crack to see two men with neatly parted hair, one holding a police badge up to my face. I opened it wider, scratching the top of my head nervously. My thoughts were immediately on Amy.

"Officers," I nodded in greeting, backing away from the door to allow them inside. They stood along the wall beside the door, their faces serious but respectful. "We're here about a Mr. Kendrick. We heard that you two were friends, family almost." The way they went about their visit bothered me. There was something wrong, but they weren't telling me. The kettle rocked back and forth. "Brian's the brother I never had. We've known each other since we were kids. We even went to grade school together." I went to tend to my singing kettle, looking up at the still stone-faced officers. "Tea?" They passed.

"Mr. London, around nine o'clock this evening, there was a single gunshot heard on the second floor of the Victory Club, the speakeasy down on Washington street. When we arrived at the scene we saw Mr. Kendrick lying on the ground with a bullet wound in his head. We think it was a quick death, if it's any consolation." I'm not sure when and if I moved before the two police officers took it upon themselves to leave. What do you do with news like that? I couldn't vomit even though I wanted to badly, and I couldn't cry because my eyes dried up as soon as the man said there was a gunshot. All I remember is that not long after the police left, Amy was knocking on my door loud enough to bother the whole building.

Somehow, that's all I know, I managed to open the door for her although the chances of me showing any joy for the fact that she was there were slim to none. "I saw the police come in when I was in my apartment. I was leaving when I saw them at your door. Please tell me you're not in any trouble. You're a good kid and you know that." My hands were shoved into my pockets uncomfortably as I watched my feet on the ground. My silence was getting to her. I felt her fingers comb through my hair like a mother soothing a sad child. That was us alright.

"Brian's dead." My mouth felt like sandpaper. I looked up to see her reaction, and it was the same as mine. Amy managed to move before I did though and flung herself on my, squeezing the life out of me as she kissed my forehead. I let her. I closed my eyes, fell to the aroma of roses in her perfume and let myself sink in the fact that my best friend, my brother was gone. Dead. Murdered. Gone was the nice word that they said. They made it sound like it was an accident.

"He was shot at the Green Jazz, the club downtown. They said he was on the second floor with a bullet to the brain." For some reason, as hard as it was to accept, it flowed from my lips like it was an everyday event. It kind of was. Murder at a speakeasy was hardly any big news. It hardly made news at all. Amy pulled away from her embrace and I could see the wrinkle on her forehead, the one that women hate. "Second floor of the Green Jazz?" I nodded in confirmation. "Honey, that doesn't sound like Brian, at least not from what I saw." In Amy's visiting she had seen him come and go, and talked to him a number of times when she was stopping by to see me.

"You've heard about that place, haven't you? It's a mob spot. Only criminals, boozehounds, gamblers and whores go there. In fact, most guys that go there are criminals looking to get drunk, gamble and make some time with a whore. That's not your friend." Amy's voice had dropped at the last word of her sentence. Her face was directed toward the ground and she shook her head. Her lips moved but I couldn't hear anything other than a line of rambling letters. "Amy, what are you saying?" She looked up almost as though it was going to be passed off as nothing, but she sighed sharply and gloomily answered.

"I said that I knew something bad was going to happen eventually. Those guys are always up to no good but it's been quiet lately. Real quiet. I know people, Paul, and the ones that have been talking say that it's scary. If this has anything to do with the way that people have been acting, your friend won't even be a memory in this place. No one's gonna talk." If life was like the funny pages a light bulb would've hovered over the top of my head. Amy could see it. I wasn't in the mood to argue, and I knew that was coming next.

"I know how you feel about him, but if you walk in there they're gonna fill you with lead. You don't know anyone there and you don't look like the type that would want to know anyone there. You don't have any business there." Amy was nearly shouting at me as I grabbed my jacket off the coat rack and sloppily pulled my shoes on. "But I know you, Amy, and I know that you're a good person. Deep down, you know that too." With my shoes and jacket on, I looked at Amy who stood with her hands on her hips, appearing distressed. Even she knew that she wasn't going to stop me.

"Look," she said as she approached me, placing her hand on the door to block me from leaving. "I'm going there in ten minutes. I'm working until one in the morning. Certain things don't happen until eleven. The johns know not to show up then. You wait until after eleven to show up and say that Amy sent you there for some company. When you go there, we're barely even acquaintances, okay? Don't even go to me. If you want to know what happened to your friend, go to Trish, but don't ask for her. She's the head girl there. Pretty girl, long blonde hair like you've never seen. Tell her what's going on and she'll help you. I know she will."

The silence was deafening. Amy sighed once again and leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. She was gone shortly after. I would follow her plan. It was smart, I knew that much, and I had to do the smart thing for Brian's sake. To pass the time I was going to do the only thing that I could. Write. Everyone was going to know what happened to Brian Kendrick. Everyone. And I was going to be the one to tell them.


	2. Chapter 2

The air was thick with cigar smoke that billowed from the open crack of the door. Some one was enjoying his time at the club tonight. From where I stood on the empty street I could only see tinted windows and a chain preventing the door to be opened any further. I wasn't one to roam this part of town at night so it was all new to me, but as the saying goes, it was now or never.

"I haven't seen you before, kid." I shoved my hands in my pocket and nodded peacefully. I figured that my best bet would be to stay quiet and let him do most of the talking. If I kept my gums flapping he would know too much about me and he was already suspicious about my reasons for showing up at the place. "Now tell me, what's a nice and square looking kid doing here? Lost?" The smirk on his face was enough to make me sick to my stomach. A guy like that didn't deserve to be so smug.

"As lost as the rest of you," I said, keeping my cool. "Amy sent me. Said that if I needed a break from things I should come here. I need a break and I've got the scratch to get me by. Is that a problem?" The man kept his silence as he gave me the once over. I myself was sweating so bad that I had to pull my hands out and wipe them on my pant leg. After what felt like an eternity the chain was undone and the door was pulled open for me. "Not a problem at all. Enjoy."

Stepping into that joint was just how I imagined going comatose to be. Surreal. On arrival there was a bar on the left with a few patrons sitting on stools and a bored-looking woman with long, dark hair standing behind it in a well fitting dress. Right next to the bar was a small stage area, a record playing as a pretty brunette sang like she was auditioning for Hollywood. What was she doing in a place like this? What were any of them doing in a place like this?

All of the other space was filled with tables occupied by the local hoods, laughing that venomous laugh of theirs as they played a game of cards. Each one had a woman hanging on their arm. I almost questioned the humanity of such a woman until I remembered that Amy was still somewhere in the building. "Hey, doll," a pretty blonde said, flashing her pearly whites in my direction. That had to be her.

"What…Cat got your tongue?" The woman teased as I snapped back into the state of awareness that I should have been in the whole time. "No…Sorry." I gave the woman my own quick evaluation. She seemed to be a nice woman, genuine smile, but women tend to lie, don't they? "Your face doesn't ring any bells," the blonde said quite warily. I could tell by the way she looked me over once, twice, three times that she was trying to figure out why I was there.

"If you don't need anything then I'm going to take care of whoever needs me. If you decide that you need me later, the name is Trish. Okay?" Trish couldn't have brushed me off any quicker with the way that she turned, obviously intending to get as far away from me as possible. "Trish, wait." I said as I grabbed a hold of her arm. Her hazel eyes were wide as they stared, startled. Fear was settling in quickly.

"Calm down. Amy said that you could help me. All I want is the truth and I swear I won't cause any trouble. You won't see me again once this whole thing is over." Trish hardly looked relieved by anything I had said. She was holding her breath. I could tell by the frozen stance that she took and the fact that she remained completely still as if she had been petrified. "Brian Kendrick," I began once I had determined that she wasn't ready to talk. "He was here and he got shot upstairs. He's dead and I need to know who did it and why. I hope you can be the one to tell me."

"Look, I don't know anything about it!" Trish screamed. The elevated voice had drawn some stares into our direction causing me to let go of her before anyone came to see what was happening. "I'm sorry your friend died but he shouldn't have been snooping. He got what was coming to him and so will you if you don't get out of here right now. Don't be a hero. You're going to end up just like him and I'm not letting you get me or Amy dragged into this."

For the first time, I pondered my own selfishness in this 'heroic' act of defending my friend and everything I believe in. Was I being selfless or foolish? It was highly possible and plausible that rushing into this was only going to be the demise of my life and anyone who came in contact with me. An allegedly innocent stranger and a woman that was my closest living friend could both be in danger.

Was I going to stop? No. I was only going to push harder.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you all riled," I said holding my hands up as a plea for her to calm down. I looked around at the others around us to make sure she hadn't drawn too much attention. "Trish, I need your help. Please." I could see her eyes warm up from her panic as she let out a soft, tired sigh, brushing loose strands of hair behind her ear as she settled down. "Look," I whispered with all the sincerity I possessed, "I need to know what happened to Brian. He was my best friend and now he's gone. I can't let whoever did this to him get away with it, and I can't let Brian disappear like he didn't matter. He mattered to me and so many other people. He had other people that cared about him, Trish."

It was clear that she was uncomfortable with the depth and emotion behind my words. She wouldn't allow herself to look near my eyes, although I tried my hardest to stare straight into hers. I could feel her coming around to my side. At least I could tell she understood my plight. I just needed to win her over, to help me, because I knew more than anything that I needed her. And maybe she needed me too. "Trish, I'm going to figure this out, one way or another, but I need you. Don't you realize so much more than mourning is at stake here? Someone here is a murderer. You don't know who will die next. It could be her," I said as I looked toward the pretty brunette that I had seen upon my arrival, singing her heart out like it was bigger than the room. I glanced around the room and looked toward another woman, a less innocent one to say the last. "Or maybe her. Who knows. All I know is that _someone_ is going to get hurt before this whole thing is over."

"Hey!" She snapped softly. "Don't you dare wish anything on these girls. You're not the one watching after them. You're not the one making sure they have hope for the next day. This is the only safe place they have. Anywhere else they would be in an alley or stuffed in a body bag already. I know they don't belong here but this is the only home they've got. The only person in trouble here is you. You're the only one here that doesn't belong."

"And you do?" I asked out of pure curiosity.

"Yeah, I do," the blonde said. As small and beautiful as she was, no one would expect for her to display the amount of edge she did. The was she held herself was graceful but lethal. By looking at her I knew why she belonged but I wanted to know if she did. I still knew nothing about her but what I saw and felt from instinct. "As long as I'm alive I'm going to protect these girls like they're my own. And if anyone wants to hurt them they're going to have to go through me first. They've already had enough hurt in their lives. Take Maria, for instance, the debutante" Trish said with a sad smile as she turned toward the songbird at the front. "Poor thing. Her parents died five years ago in a train wreck. Her other family members kicked her out. The girl was so traumatized, they figured why keep her around if they couldn't marry her off? I found her wandering the streets of Chicago by herself. Scared and crying." Trish sighed, shaking her head at the thought of it. "No place for a pretty little thing like her. As innocent as she is, she wouldn't survive a day out there alone. Especially without any way to get by. So she sings and works here to pay her way and Shane lets her stay upstairs in one of the rooms."

My heart sank deeper and deeper into my stomach as I thought about that girl by herself. She seemed so lively and energetic, smiling from ear to ear. I could even see her glowing despite all of the smoke and dim lighting in the room. I wanted to dwell on the thought that there could be something more to this place but I knew I couldn't. By mourning years past I would have forgotten something more important than any heartache in the room. "Shane? You said Shane lets her stay upstairs." I frowned as the name became less and less clear to me.

"McMahon," she added upon seeing my confusion. "Shane McMahon. He runs this place. Well, sort of. I mean, there was a man that owned this place some years back. He was a nice guy. Witty. He actually seemed to care too. Ross was his name. Anyway, when the elder McMahon was elected as District Attorney, Mr. Ross kept saying how bad he was for Chicago. 'The guy's a weasel. He's not good enough to be roadkill,' he would always say. No one thought about it before but when he brought it up we all realized that there were some shady things about this guy. He made people disappear."

Trish's hazel eyes were fading right in front of me. She was becoming a ghost, paling and nervously shaking. In an attempt to comfort the girl I reached out and grabbed her clammy and trembling hand. "Are you alright? Do you need anything? Water, maybe?" Trish pulled her hand back and shook her head though she smiled and waved off my offer. She was much too strong to let anyone help her, no matter how little the help was. "If you're sure you're okay..what do you mean by 'he made people disappear'?"

"I don't know. I mean, no one really knows. It just all happened out of the blue. I was just another girl around the bar, serving drinks and taking orders, when I heard Mr. Ross talking to a guy. His friend skipped town. No warning, no note. No reason at all. And the strange part is, his car was still there and no one saw him leave Chicago. Mr. Ross was suspicious but he really didn't have an explanation for any of it. He just decided to agree with everyone else and assume that the guy just decided the city wasn't for him. He wouldn't have been the first. But then.." She paused. Once again she was trembling and her skin was becoming pale. She looked sickly.

"Trish..." I began, but she stopped me.

"No," she shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair as she calmed herself down once again. "There was a girl here like Maria. She was beautiful and she was so much better than this place. I always knew that I was going to be here. I didn't have any job training or skills. But we always told her she was going to go to Hollywood because we knew she could make it. She could sing and dance, and we were sure she could act too. She could do anything." The excitement in her voice died down as she continued on with her story, and I knew where she was going with it already. "One night Torrie didn't show up at the bar. At first no one worried, or at least no one wanted to look like they were worried. They could only hold it in for so long until everyone just went crazy. Mr. Ross was livid. He was screaming to everyone that walked through the door that nothing had been right since McMahon showed up and that he was sure he was involved somehow. That everyone that was disappearing rubbed McMahon the wrong way or something like that. One day it was Torrie and then a couple days later Mr. Ross didn't show up. Then we all knew that we couldn't make excuses, even if none of us wanted to speak out. Well, someone did speak out and we knew he would get to the bottom of things. Adam loved Mr. Ross like a son would a father, and he was always our protector anyway. Someone would get too loud or get a little frisky with one of the girls and he would toss them out. Things were good when he was around. Everyone was happy around him, and we knew we were going to be happy even if Mr. Ross wasn't there to make us smile."

Her hazel eyes were glassy as a shield of tears built up. She brought her arm up and rather unlike a lady, roughly wiped them away with her arm. "I'm sorry if I seem defensive or cold-hearted but you should be able to understand why I don't want you here. We were so close to having everything back to normal. Adam was going to save us all and avenge his friends' murders but he couldn't be the hero for once. And you're just following in his footsteps just like Brian did. Well, you know what happened to Brian, and I was there. Don't get yourself in too deep. Amy doesn't need to lose someone else."

"I'm sorry, but I think Amy understands. She wants me to do this," I said, much too simply for what I received in response.

"She had faith in Adam too, but that didn't do her much good," Trish said, her bitterness now replaced with sadness as she drifted away from me. She wandered over to the bar and painted on a smiling face as she let Maria pull her into her song.

When it seemed like I was getting to the bottom of things, I was still so far away from knowing what I needed to know. I was beginning to understand some of the backstory but I still had so many questions to ask. Why would anyone murder a girl like Torrie? Who murdered Mr. Ross? And Adam. Who was this Adam character and how close was he to Amy? Hell, were any of these people even dead? And what was the full story on this Shane McMahon? How much did Brian know, exactly? Well, whatever the answers were, I was going to have to figure them all out or else. And I didn't need to figure out what the 'or else' meant. I think it was pretty clear that death was the only other option.


End file.
